“You can get up now,” said the smaller.
Miles sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and rose to his feet. The sensation of his rising was indescribable. It was almost as if he floated to his feet without muscular effort. As he stood facing the two aliens, the feeling of lightness in his body persisted. He felt, although his feet were flat on the floor, as if he were standing on tiptoe, with no effort involved.
“What’s happened to me?” he asked wonderingly.
“You are now completely healthy. That’s all,” said the taller alien. “Would you like to take a look at yourself?”
Miles nodded.
He had barely completed the nod when the wall behind the two aliens suddenly became a shimmering mirror surface. He saw himself reflected in it, standing beside the bed wrapped in his close-fitting silver clothes, and for a moment he did not recognize himself.
The man who stood imaged in the mirror was erect and straight-limbed and looked bigger—bigger all over in some strange way—than Miles had remembered his mirror image’s ever looking before. But it was not this so much that caused Miles to catch his breath. There was something drastically different about him now. Something had happened. He stared at himself for a long moment without understanding, and then he saw it. And an icy feeling of excitement ran down his spine.
In the tight silver sleeve that enclosed it to the wrist, his left arm was as large and full-muscled as his right. And the hand that terminated it was in no way different from the healthy hand at the end of his right arm.
Miles stood staring at it. He could not believe what he saw. And then—he could believe it, but he was afraid that if he looked away from it for an instant, what he saw would evaporate into a dream. Or what he saw would go back to being the way it had been these last six years. But he continued to stand there, and his mirrored image did not change. Slowly, almost dazedly, he turned his eyes to the two aliens.
“My arm,” he said.
“Of course,” said the small alien.
Miles turned back to the mirror surface. Hesitantly he lifted his good right arm to feel the left hand and arm. They were solid and warm, alive and movable, under the fingertips of what had been his lone good hand. A bubble of joy and amazement began to swell within him. He turned once more to the aliens.
“You didn’t tell me about this,” he said. “You didn’t tell me my arm would be fixed.”
“It was of a piece with the rest,” said the taller alien. “And we did not want you to commit yourself because of anything like a bribe.”
Miles turned back to the mirror surface, feeling his left arm and marveling at it once more. The sensation in the arm as he moved it woke him to the sensations of the rest of his body. Looking at himself closely in the mirror surface now, he saw that he was heavier, more erect, in every way stronger and more vital than he had been before. In his mind he tried to find words to express how it was with him now, but the words would not come. He felt all in one piece—and he felt invisible. That was the closest he could come to it. There were no sensations of sublevel pains, weariness, or heaviness about him. He and his body were one, as—he could now remember—he had not felt since he had been very young. He turned back to the aliens.
“Thank you,” he said.
“There is no need to thank us,” said the shorter of the two aliens. “What we did to you we did as much for ourselves as for you. Now it’s time for you to start to become charged with the identification sense of your fellow humans.”
Miles stared at him with interest.
“Shall I lie down on the bed again?” Miles asked.
“No,” said the taller alien. “This next is nothing we can do for you. You have to do it all yourself. You’ve been away from the surface of your world for two and a half days now. During that time the people of your world have been informed through all possible news media that soon you’ll be back and moving about among them. They’ve been told, if they see you, not to speak to you or show any awareness of you. They’re simply to let you wander among them and treasure up in their minds the sight of you.”
“That’s all I do?” demanded Miles.
“Not quite all,” said the smaller of the two. “You have to open your inner consciousness to their sense of identification with you and what you’ll be doing in their name. You must endeavor to feel toward them as they feel toward you. You must learn to consider them precious.”
“But where do I go first? What should I do?” Miles asked.
“Simply—wander,” the shorter alien said. “Do you know a poem called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner? Written by a man named Coleridge.”
“I’ve read it,” said Miles.
“Then perhaps you remember the lines with which the Ancient Mariner explains his moving about the Earth to tell his story,” said the smaller one. There still was no perceptible emotion in his voice, but as he quoted the two lines that followed, it seemed that they rang with particular emphasis in Miles’ mind and memory.
“You will find,” the smaller of the two aliens went on, “that it’ll be with you as it was with the poem’s Ancient Mariner. If you want to move from one place to another, you only need to think of the place you want to be, and you will be there. If you want to lift yourself into the air or fly like a bird, you can do it by thinking of it. You’ll find that no lock will be able to keep you out of any place you want to enter. No wall will bar you. If you wish, you can walk through any barrier. The people of your world who can be reached by the news media have been warned to expect this. They have been told to expect you anywhere—even in their own homes. They have been asked to cooperate by ignoring you when you appear suddenly among them.”
“What if they don’t ignore me?” asked Miles. “Your asking them to do it doesn’t guarantee they will.”
“Those who don’t ignore you,” said the taller alien, “won’t be offering you the necessary identification you are out to gather from as many of your race as possible. So remove yourself from the presence of anyone who does not cooperate, because you will be wasting your time. As far as any inimical actions are concerned, you’ll find that while you can touch anything you like, you can’t be touched or hurt by anything, unless you wish it—right up to and including your race’s nuclear weapons. Nothing can hold you, and nothing can harm you.”
He fell silent. Miles stood uncertainly for a moment.
“Well,” he said at last. “Shall I go now, then, and start?”
“The sooner, the better,” said the taller alien. “Simply think of the spot on the surface of the Earth where you want to be and you’ll be there.”
“And when shall I come back?” asked Miles.
“When you’ve gathered together an identification sense with enough of your fellow humans, you’ll know it,” said the shorter alien. “Simply decide then to come back here to the ship and you’ll be here. Then we’ll leave together for the defense line that’s being set up outside the spiral arm of the galaxy to meet the Silver Horde.”
“All right,” said Miles slowly. He felt strange. It was as if everything that had happened to him had happened within a few moments. At the same time, he was surprised to feel that he was not overwhelmed by it all. Now, particularly since he was in this rebuilt, newly perfect body, all that the aliens said seemed entirely natural, and all that he had to do seemed entirely normal.
He wondered where on Earth it would be best to go to first. While he was still wondering, a stray impulse made him look once more into the mirror image of the wall. He saw himself there, and he could not help smiling at what be saw. He turned back to the aliens.